Online Information Sites: It’s On The Grid

The amount and quality of information online about the Hollywood movie business nowadays is remarkable. Writers from anywhere in the world can track the progress of a spec script all the way from its submission to acquisition through development and into production.

Some sites have been around for years, while new ones continue to emerge, so I figured it would be helpful to GITS readers to provide an overview this week of some of the most prominent information sites currently available online.

Today we feature It’s On The Grid:

www.itsonthegrid.com (IOTG) is a subscription-based, web-enabled database that provides up-to-date information on the feature film development business to entertainment industry professionals as well as aspiring filmmakers and screenwriters. The company was founded by a group of MP Lit managers who needed a tool to collectively track development information and cover the various studios, other buyers and production companies throughout Hollywood.

IOTG’s mission is to democratize open writing assignment, open directing assignment, spec script and other film development information for the benefit of the entire entertainment community. In addition to the tools and information available within the site itself, the company also maintains a free section of the site at http://blog.itsonthegrid.com where news about updates and additions to the database is posted on a regular basis.

I asked Jason Scoggins of It’s On The Grid some questions:

If I asked you to describe ItsOnTheGrid.com as a high-concept, what would that description be?

It’s basically “The Studio System” meets “a tracking board.” The concept was to build a site that would combine the insider access of a really good tracking board (one that focused primarily on the spec market and open writing and directing assignments) with the features and capabilities of a web-based database. All the data we capture is linked together, and our search feature is really strong.

How long has IOTG been online and what was the impetus in creating the site?

We soft launched the site at the beginning of November last year. Originally, I was just trying to solve one of my own problems: I was tired of having my tracking data all over the place (in emails and notebooks and spreadsheets and buck slips and phonesheets and so on). I wanted a single database where I could capture and share all that information with my clients and colleagues (internally at Protocol as well as with our clients’ agents, lawyers, partners, etc). Once I figured out the best way to do that, turning the system into a publicly available resource was the obvious next step.

What information and services does IOTG offer that distinguishes it from other online script tracking sites?

IOTG isn’t really an online script tracking site per se — it’s much closer in spirit to entertainment industry databases like The Studio System and IMDb Pro. We view sites like tracking-board.com and trackingb.com more as colleagues and collaborators than competitors.

That said, the biggest differentiator between IOTG and tracking boards in general is technological: Our site is powered by salesforce.com’s database platform and technology infrastructure, which makes it really easy to drill down into the information we’ve captured on the projects, people and companies in the movie business.

By extension, a primary distinguishing characteristic of our site is the sheer number of records in our database. We’re not nearly as established as The Studio System, but we add to our database daily, and we collect information from sources they don’t have. As of this writing we’ve got upwards of 2200 projects, 5500 people and 1200 companies in the system, and that’s just what we’ve captured from the active projects we’ve been tracking over the past year or so.

What are your annual subscription rates?

We’ve got a killer two-for-one cross-promotion with tracking-board.com that started last month: An annual subscription to both sites costs just $199 through June 30, which is less than half the combined annual rate for both sites. The promotion will continue after the end of June, but starting July 1 the rate will be $299 (which is still a discount of nearly $100).

IOTG also offers month-to-month pricing — rates are listed on the “Plans & Pricing” page on the site.

A major source of interest in IOTG for aspiring and working screenwriters should be the daily coverage of script sales. What sources do you use to verify those individual sales? How far back in terms of years do your sales archives go?

I didn’t start tracking the spec market in a serious way until the beginning of 2009, so IOTG’s spec market data only goes back to January 2009 on a wholesale basis. We add to it piecemeal as projects that started out as specs percolate in development.

As far as sources for spec sale information goes, we use a mix of private and public sources. On the private side, my colleagues and I collectively participate in dozens of private tracking groups — small groups of development executives, agents, managers and producers at companies throughout Hollywood who share information with each other daily. IOTG’s operating principle is to report information that is widely available to Hollywood insiders, not to expose confidential information, so we usually wait until we’ve heard something from more than one source before we add it to the database, and we do what we can to get independent confirmation as well. So far we haven’t run into any problems, and we’ve even become a trusted source of information for several high profile entertainment reporters (you’d know the names and the sites if I mentioned them).

We also keep a close eye on public sources of information such as the trades, the Los Angeles Times, several subscription-based tracking sites and other sources of original reporting on the industry such as deadline.com and TheWrap.com. Each of those sites breaks spec sale information on a regular basis, and every day we capture everything appropriate for the database.

What about your coverage of OWA’s (Open Writing Assignments)? Why is that particularly important information?

We use the same basic methodology for capturing OWA and ODA (Open Directing Assignment) information that we do for the spec market, but since our day jobs revolve around helping our clients find writing and directing gigs, most of our OWA and ODA information is gathered directly from the producers and executives we talk to every day.

OWA and ODA information is intrinsically valuable to anyone who works in or wants to work in Hollywood. In addition to being potential job opportunities for pro writers and directors (and thus potential commission opportunities for their reps), knowing which projects are in active development around town is a crucial competitive tool for producers and executives alike.

And that applies to anyone aspiring to work in the business in any capacity as well: One of the tricks to breaking into the business is giving people the impression you belong there, that you’re a peer (or at least a potential peer). Knowing who works where and what projects they’re working on is a huge step in that direction, and that’s the data we provide.

You have a free information site called LifeOnTheBubble.com. Could you describe what type of information a reader may expect to find there? Do you have an email subscription service for that site and is it free?

LifeOnTheBubble.com is my blog, and it’s evolved a bit since I started it about a year ago (and even more so now that IOTG is live and has its own blog). The IOTG Blog is about to become a bit more focused (it’ll soon function as a free feed of database updates — additions and changes to the people, projects and companies in the system), and the organizing principle behind LOTB is about to become more focused as well.

Here’s how I think about LifeOnTheBubble.com: LOTB is where I share information about the business side of the entertainment business that I find particularly interesting or relevant to the state of the industry on the whole. Which is to say, I don’t reblog every little item that appears in the trades and deadline.com; I only include the stuff that I think illustrates or adds to my understanding of how the business works now, or points in some way to where it’s going in the future. It focuses mostly on film and TV lit, too; that’s not a reflection on any other portion of the entertainment business, it’s simply where I spend the bulk of my time. I pepper non-entertainment- or non-business-related articles in there when something really grabs my attention, but those tend to be few and far between.

I’m a huge fan of email digests and RSS feeds, so it’s been important to me from the start that people can subscribe to my LOTB posts in a variety of ways. There’s a daily email digest as well as RSS and Twitter feeds (links to subscribe are at the top of the left-hand column of the site), and posts are also fed to the site’s Facebook fan page. (There are fan pages for LOTB as well as IOTG — search Facebook using their full names if you want to check them out.)

You also have the The Scoggins Report. What is that and is that available for email subscription?

The Scoggins Report is a twice-monthly article on the spec market that I started writing in April last year. As I’ve mentioned to you privately, when I first started I liberally borrowed the format from the year-end articles you wrote in December 2008. At the beginning of the month, I do an article called the Spec Market Roundup, which looks back at the previous month’s spec market activity. Mid-month I do one called the Spec Market Scorecard, which rolls up spec market stats (how many scripts were sold, and to whom, and by whom) for the entire year to date. During the slow spec months this summer, I plan to do a couple of editions of the Scoggins Report that will focus on the OWA market, building on the OWA Scorecard I wrote for the first time in January and February this year.

The Scoggins Report publishes every other Friday as part of the Business of Show Institute’s weekly newsletter (which people can subscribe to on the BOSI home page). I also send the report out a day or so early to my own email mailing list. Anyone who’s interested can sign up using the forms on www.lifeonthebubble.com and blog.itsonthegrid.com. I used to publish The Scoggins Report directly on LOTB, but now the only way to get a copy is via BOSI or my personal email list.

Any new features you have plans for in IOTG’s future you can share with us?

We’ve got a bunch of stuff in the hopper that I can’t talk about yet, but I would like to expand a bit on something I mentioned above. One of the things we’ve struggled with over the past couple of months is letting people know about the projects, people and companies that we add to or change in the database every day. We’ve done a fairly good job reporting spec script information from the start, but that’s just one portion of the site. Starting in June, we’re going to explicitly organize our IOTG Blog posts around updates to the database in general.

Since the blog’s email digest and RSS and Twitter feeds are free, this adjustment means members and non-members alike will be able to see what amounts to the day-to-day ebb and flow of film development information. It’ll probably take a week or two to get the mix right, but our goal is to create another helpful way to stay abreast of the film development business.

You’ve recently partnered with tracking-board.com. Could you tell us why IOTG decided to enter into that partnership? What sort of deals are you offering to subscribers?

We’re really proud about our partnership with The Tracking Board (www.tracking-board.com) for a bunch of reasons, not least because they do a fantastic job tracking the spec market and keeping day-to-day tabs on the business in general. Ultimately, though, our decision to go with them as opposed to reaching out to one of the other sites boiled down to this: They have the same attitude we do when it comes to applying web technology to Hollywood. It starts with little things like providing RSS and Twitter feeds (most other sites don’t, at the moment) and extends to more significant things like the truly impressive script library they’ve assembled and made available to their members. It’s been a pleasure collaborating with them so far — we’re working on a bunch of new ideas that we’ll start bringing out jointly in the next month or so.

In the meantime, we’ve got that great deal for our subscribers that I mentioned above: Through the end of June, $199 gets you an annual subscription to both sites (IOTG’s “Professional” subscription, to be precise), which is about 50% of the normal cost of the two sites for a year. Starting July 1, the price will be $299.

In your view, why should a screenwriter join IOTG?

I touched on this a bit above, but let me come at it from a different direction. I recently read “Good in a Room,” former studio executive Stephanie Palmer’s excellent book on how to pitch well. There’s a whole chapter on this topic toward the beginning called, “It’s What You Know.” I wish I could excerpt the whole chapter here — it answers this question beautifully and in detail. In a nutshell, though, Stephanie points out “[i]t’s what you know that helps you develop relationships with whom you know. [snip] Shared knowledge is…a starting point for a conversation and the foundation for finding common ground.” The idea is to connect with people as quickly and organically as you can, and having the same knowledge base is a very useful place to start.

To tie this up with a bow, I think IOTG is terrific way to broaden and deepen your knowledge of the business. Whether you’re a pro writer who could actually go up for one of the OWAs in the database or an aspiring screenwriter trying to target agents and managers for potential representation, the more you know the business the better prepared you’ll be to take advantage of your opportunities.

Finally we all know how slow the current spec script market is. As an informed observer of that part of the industry, is there anything you can say to GITS readers to talk them off the ledge and give them some hope about the future re spec scripts? Or are we officially in sick, dying, or dead territory?

Here’s the thing: The spec market reflects the industry on the whole, which has always had a built-in boom and bust cycle. We’re still deep in a bust period — the studios are making significantly fewer movies than they used to, which translates into purchasing less material than they had been and being more selective about the projects they do pursue. Further, today’s buyers have no appetite to develop material for years on end like they used to; they want projects that are basically ready to go (maybe with a quick polish under the director’s supervision), and as a rule they intend to make the stuff they purchase. All of which is bad news if you view the spec market as a way to make a quick buck. Next to nothing is selling, so if that’s you, I suggest putting away your laptop for a couple more years and keep thinking about buying distressed real estate.

If you’re reading GITS, though, you’re most likely in this for the long haul — you intend to be or already are a career screenwriter. To you, I suggest there’s plenty of hope for the future, especially if you’re trying to break in for the first time. Now is a fantastic time to get your A material out there, not because you think it’s going to sell (you should assume it’s not) but because there are so few scripts on the market that anything really good is getting noticed in a big way. Plus, not selling your script is in no way stigmatizing at the moment — after all, no one expects anything to sell in the first place, so the fact that your stuff doesn’t sell puts you in very good company. If your material is excellent, there’s literally no downside — whether it sells or not, you’ll get the fabled series of “general meetings” with fans of your script. And if you’re good in the room (seriously, go read Stephanie Palmer’s book already), your first big break will be just a step or two away.

Eventually, the studios will stumble across one of those articles from a year or so ago which pointed out that the studios that routinely earn the most money from distributing movies…distribute the most movies. We may never get back to the good times of routine seven figure spec sales, but I think we’ll start to swing from bust to boom in another year or two. That is, assuming we don’t get hit with the mother of all strikes in 2011…

Jason Scoggins recently launched Eureka Canyon Enterprises, a literary management, production and consulting company that represents writers, directors and producers for feature films and television. He founded and runs www.itsonthegrid.com, a database of feature film development information, and writes The Scoggins Report, a terribly unscientific analysis of the feature film development business. Jason got his start in the entertainment industry in 1995 as an agent trainee at ICM, which led to stints as a TV Lit Agent at Gersh and Writers & Artists. He left the business (and California) for several years, returning in 2007 as a partner at Protocol, a literary management and production company.

Tomorrow’s featured site: Script Shadow.

EDITORIAL NOTE: The series of posts I’m running this week is not intended as a recommendation for any specific site, but rather to provide information to GITS readers about various information resources that are currently available online.